The Wisdom of Teaching: Signposts for the Profession

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The Wisdom of TeachingSignposts for the
Profession

• Graeme Aitken
• Keynote address, International World Teachers
  Day
• Holiday Inn, Wellington
• 31 October, 2008

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Draft Registered Teacher Criteria - Purposes

• COMPLIANCE
• Requirement for registration
• Required professional knowledge, practices and
  relationships
• Criteria against which teachers are endorsed as
  competent
• GUIDANCE
• Criteria to guide the professional learning and
  the assessment of teachers
• Framework to guide career long professional
  learning
• ASPIRATION
• To promote the status of the teaching profession
  through raising awareness of the complex nature
  of teachers' work.
• To strengthen public confidence in the
  profession.

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• Effective teachers
• seek to maximise the time that students are
  engaged and successful with learning related to
  valued outcomes.

4
Effective teachers seek to maximise the time
that students are engaged and successful with
learning related to valued outcomes.
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Vision
Key Competencies
X 5
Confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong
learners
Level 5
Level 4 AO
Other Strands
Other Learning Areas
Principles
Level 3
Learning Area Statement
X 8
Values
X 8 encouraged to value X 4 learning about X 5
ability to
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Effective teachers seek to maximise the time
that students are engaged and successful with
learning related to valued outcomes.
duplication
waiting
confusion
busy work
7
Effective teachers seek to maximise the time
that students are engaged and successful with
learning related to valued outcomes.
behaviour
emotion
thought
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Effective teachers seek to maximise the time
that students are engaged and successful with
learning related to valued outcomes.
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Effective teachers seek to maximise the time
that students are engaged and successful with
learning related to valued outcomes.
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Effective teachers seek to maximise the time
that students are engaged and successful with
learning related to valued outcomes.
after Berliner, D. (1987). Simple Views of
Effective Teaching and A Simple Theory of
Classroom Instruction. In Berliner, D.
Rosenshine, B. Talks To Teachers (pp. 93-110).
New York Random House.
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Curriculum Signposts NZC
Teaching Inquiry What strategies (evidence-based)
are most likely to help my students learn this?
ENGAGEMENT
TEACHING

SUCCESS
LEARNING
ALIGNMENT
Focusing Inquiry What is important (and
therefore worth spending time on), given where my
students are at?
Learning Inquiry What happened as a result of the
teaching, and what are the implications for
future teaching?
ALIGNMENT
Is there something else I need to change?
What are the next steps for learners?
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Curriculum Signposts Te Whariki

• Focusing Inquiry (Alignment)
• Discussion and debate about planning programmes
  are a crucial part of the process of improving
  it, by ensuring that people think about, and are
  able to justify, their beliefs and practices.
• Learning Inquiry (Engagement and Success)
• Assessment of childrens learning and development
  involves intelligent observation of the children
  by experienced and knowledgeable adults for the
  purpose of improving the programme.
• Teaching Inquiry (Engagement and Success)
• Continuous observations, over a period of time,
  provide the basis of information for more
  in-depth assessment and evaluation that is
  integral to making decisions on how best to meet
  childrens needs.

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Wisdom

• Universal truths, theories and ideas
• Technical craft or skill
• Practical wisdom
• acting with reason in a situation that is
  variable and particular
• deliberate nobly
• doing well
• See Wiliam, Dylan (2008). What should education
  research do, and how should it do it? Educational
  Researcher. Vol 37, 7, pp 432-438

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SIGNPOST 1 Wise use of time why does this
learning matter for these students at this time?
4/10 bicultural partnership and context 6 plan
and implement programmes 7 knowledge of how their
students learn
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SIGNPOST 2 Wise action to what extent is the
teacher seeking out, evaluating, discussing,
implementing and testing alternatives?
1 effective relationships 2 promoting wellbeing
11 collaborative, supportive learning
environment 8 effective responses to student
strengths, interests, needs 4 bicultural
partnership 5 leadership that contributes to
effective teaching and learning
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SIGNPOST 3 Wise use of evidence what did the
students experience?
3 commitment to ongoing professional learning 12
commitment to critical inquiry and
problem-solving
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Curriculum Signposts Te Whariki

• knowledgeable (about childrens development and
  early childhood curriculum)
• skilled (at implementing curriculum)
• thoughtful (about what they do)
• willing to try alternatives (success)

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SIGNPOST 4 Wise people
3 commitment to ongoing professional learning
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Optimism is a Duty

• The future is open. It is not fixed in advance.
  So no one can predict it except by chance. The
  possibilities lying within the future, both good
  and bad, are boundless. When I say, Optimism is
  a duty, this means that not only is the future
  open but that we all help to decide it through
  what we do. We are jointly responsible for what
  is to come.
• So we all have a duty, instead of predicting
  something bad, to support things that may lead to
  a better future
• Karl Popper (1992)The Collapse of Communism
  Understanding the Past and Influencing the Future
  Lecture given at Expo92 in Seville, 6 March 1992